Regulation

For many of us interested in Internet Regulation, cyber-libertarianism is that wacky and archaic theory that is described at the start of a presentation, sort of like Geocities pages and Myspace profiles. “Look at what those naïve early Internet theorists believed, and isn’t that animated dancing baby hideous?” The cyber-libertarian Read more…

Turkey declared war on the Internet this week when its regime decided that it did not like the portrayal of its leader in social media. Accusing them of bias, the Telecommunication’s Department issued a directive ordering the immediate blocking of Twitter across its territory. The reason for the ban was Read more…

I’ve been reading and watching with interest a UK Channel 4 report on the popular virtual world Habbo Hotel. For those unfamiliar with the story, Channel 4 News got a female producer to pose as an 11-year old girl for 2 months, who complains that she was subjected to extreme Read more…

Back in November 2011 the US Department of Justice announced its continuing program of domain name seizures under the authority of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. At the same time, ICE removed the domain from 150 sites allegedly infringing copyright. Back then, I felt that this would be Read more…

Imagine that you are employed by Twitter, and decide to go to Thailand for your vacations. You are really looking forward to your trip, so you obviously tweet about it in advance. When leaving, you engage in typical Twitter banter about delayed flights, airport lounges and the indignities of modern Read more…

The UK has had a glimpse of what the total societal collapse looks like. The UK riots of August 2011 have struck me as an example of systemic failure of government and society at almost every level of organisation, as lawlessness and anarchy reigned supreme for a few nights. This Read more…

It has been a very interesting week for UK copyright, with some landmark decisions in Lucasfilm v Ainsworth and Newspaper Licensing Agency v Meltwater. However, everyone seems to be talking about Newzbin. In the case of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp & Ors v British Telecommunications Plc [2011] EWHC 1981, Read more…

There is a revolution currently taking place online. This is a revolution against the status quo, centralised authorities, political establishment, existing business models, and creative paradigms. This has the shape of generational warfare because most of the players are so-called Millenials, but it is actually a revolution prompted by ideals Read more…

Could the next revolution in payment systems be already here? Bitcoin is a non-fiat cryptographic electronic payment system that purports to be the world’s first cryptocurrency. In other words, it is a peer-to-peer, client-based, completely distributed currency that does not depend on centralised issuing bodies to operate, the value is Read more…

Twitter has been in the news quite a lot recently: Anthony Weiner’s inappropriate tweet to one of his followers; Wayne Rooney posts a picture of his hair-transplant; the whole Ryan Giggs keruffle trying to stop information about an alleged affair from leaking (I feel all journalistic by using the word Read more…